Paul Costanzo: Several area coaches having award-worthy years

More than a few times this high school football season, I've found myself saying, "He's gotta be a candidate for coach of the year."

I haven't been talking about the same coach all of the time, either. Seven weeks into the season, we've seen a handful of masterful coaching performances in the area.

There are the obvious candidates: Croswell-Lexington's Jason VanDerMaas and St. Clair's Bill Nesbitt. Both have their teams unbeaten through seven weeks of the season and have done so with relative ease (Cros-Lex had one tight game against a good Richmond team), but that's probably where the similarities end.

VanDerMaas is a perennial coach of the year candidate, as Cros-Lex is consistently one of the area's top teams. Like Bill Belichick or Nick Saban, this probably ends up hurting his cause at the end of the year, because when you break a candidate down for a yearly award, expectations play a big role. Cros-Lex always has high expectations, and perhaps none higher than this year's. There is something to be said for meeting high expectations.

While St. Clair might have had high expectations in its locker room this season, there's no doubt that the Saints are exceeding what the public thought of them. The Saints have tremendous athletes this season, but the scheme week in and week out has been nearly flawless in putting these kids in the right places.

Another that is becoming increasingly obvious is Marine City's Ron Glodich. The Mariners had a team that was told coming into the season that it would be down, and, while Glodich was responsible for a lot of the Mariners' success prior to this season, he was still taking over for Tony Scarcelli, who was incredibly well regarded statewide.

After losing in heart-breaking fashion in Week 1, it would have been easy for the Mariners to let the negative thoughts outside of their program take over, but they didn't, bouncing back in a big way, and becoming one of the best stories of this season.

A coach that might be flying under the radar is Sandusky's Brian Jones. Not only has Jones turned his team around after a three-game losing streak, but he took the team over on the first day of practice. It's hard enough to take over a team that lost two all-area players in Justin Mills and Brandon Tucker, but to do so on such short notice and wind up having success is remarkable.

There are two 8-man football coaches that also deserve recognition.

Deckerville's Bill Brown and Peck's Rob McDaniel have made the transition to 8-man football look easy this year, even though we know it really isn't. Brown has long been one of the area's best coaches, but this season he's reminding everyone of how good he really is. McDaniel, meanwhile, has not only helped his team make the transition to 8-man football smoothly, but has also has as many wins (six) this season as Peck has had in its last three seasons combined.

Titles and playoff games will be won to sort this all out, but for now, we have a lot of very worthy candidates.

Paul's Top 10

1. St. Clair: Another beatdown of a MAC Gold opponent sets up the biggest East China rivalry game we've seen in at least five years.

2. Croswell-Lexington: Toyed with the idea of moving the Pioneers back to No. 1 after a dominant win against Almont.

3. Marine City: Still amazed at how much this team has rebounded since Week 1, although I probably shouldn't be.

4. Port Huron: Defense was remarkable in shutout of Roseville.

5. Richmond: One win away from its first postseason berth since 2009.

6. Marysville: That was a tough two weeks for the Vikings, who need to regroup and find a way to win another game to make the playoffs.

7. Armada: The Tigers dominated Capac and should give Cros-Lex a good test this week.

8. Sandusky: I had kind of written the Redskins off as a playoff team, but that's a realistic goal right now.

9. Brown City: Of course, the Redskins do have to play Brown City this week, another team that's playing good football down the stretch.

10. Yale: Could wins against Richmond and North Branch be enough to get Yale in at 5-4? I know the Bulldogs are willing to try and find out.

Three for the road

Port Huron at Warren Mott: The Marauders have an incredible nickname, and have destroyed all of their opponents this season. Here's the trouble - Mott's seven wins have come against teams that have a combined seven wins on the season. Six of those seven opponent wins came against other Mott opponents. Pick: Port Huron 23-20.

Brown City at Sandusky: If you play the common opponent game, Sandusky has lost to a pair of teams Brown City has defeated (Cass City and Ubly), while Sandusky has defeated a team (Marlette) that defeated Brown City. What does this tell us? Probably nothing. Pick: Brown City 24-22.

Marine City at St. Clair: I really don't know right now. Which is fine, because I'm giving my prediction on Friday.

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Paul Costanzo: Several area coaches having award-worthy years

More than a few times this high school football season, I've found myself saying, 'He's gotta be a candidate for coach of the year.' I haven't been talking about the same coach all of the time,